The road to Utopia is the road to Hell. — Communism and socialism are the opiates of the intelligentsia. — The left, in its eternal and futile quest for "equality", is more than willing to abolish liberty and sunder fraternity.

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Trump and Election 2018

This was a final update before election day. The Dems won a majority in the House, though a narrow one. Meanwhile, the GOP has increased its majority in the Senate. That is the better half of the loaf because control of the Senate means that Trump can continue to remake the judiciary in a conservative image. Further, the House will be perceived as the obstructionist body for the next two years, setting the stage for a GOP restoration there. Barring the unforeseeable, a largely successful Trump presidency will set the stage for Republican dominance in 2020.

How is Trump’s popularity these days? And how will his standing with voters affect the outcome of tomorrow’s elections?

Trump’s approval ratings have been fairly steady since early in the year, with a recent uptick that bodes well for GOP candidates:

Since the spike associated with the Singapore summit, Trump”s enthusiasm ratio has settled into a range that is comfortably higher than Obama’s.

There is a different poll that is more revealing of Trump’s popularity. Every week since the first inauguration of Obama, Rasmussen Reports has asked 2,500 likely voters whether they see the country as going in the “right direction” or being on the “wrong track”. The following graph shows the ratios of “right direction”/”wrong track” for Trump and Obama:

The ratio for Trump, after a quick honeymoon start, fell into the same range as Obama’s. But it jumped with the passage of the tax cut in December 2017, and has remained high since then, despite the faux scandals concocted by the leftist media and their concerted attack on Trump.

Figure 5 suggests that the squishy center of the electorate is lining up behind Trump, despite the incessant flow of negative “reporting” about him and his policies. (See “related reading” at the end of this post.) His base is with him all the way.

Trump’s coattails may be be decisive in November. Based on an analysis of the relationships between Obama’s popularity (or unpopularity) and the outcome of House elections, it looks like the GOP will hold the House while losing about 10 seats. (This is a very rough estimate with a wide margin of error.)

Rasmussen’s generic congressional ballot affords a similar view. The polling data, which are behind a paywall, span April 2007 to May 2015 (when the poll was discontinued), and January 2018 (when the poll was resumed) to the present.

This graph compares the polling results to date with the actual nationwide vote shares compiled by House candidates in the general elections of 2008, 2010, 2010, and 2014:
FIGURE 6

Taking a closer look:

FIGURE 7

Rasmussen advertises a 2-percentage-point margin of error, which is borne out by the results for the elections of 2008-2014. In fact, the generic congressional ballot was spot-on in 2010 and 2012, while the GOP under-performed slightly in 2008 (the year of the financial crisis) and over-performed slightly in 2014 (a mid-term referendum on Obama).

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that this year’s polls are spot-on. The latest poll (figure 7) gives the GOP 51 percent of the two-party vote. How does that translate into House seats? Recent history is probably the best guide:

FIGURE 8

A 51-percent share of the vote would give the GOP about 52 percent of House seats; that is, the GOP would hold the House. In fact, two years ago the GOP won more than 55 percent of House seats with 50.5 percent of the two-party vote.

There’s more evidence against the loss of the House:

1. I correlated measures of Obama’s popularity (or lack thereof) with with the outcomes of House mid-terms during his presidency. I then applied those correlations to measures of Trump’s popularity (or lack thereof), which is markedly higher than Obama’s at this stage of their respective presidencies (according to Rasmussen, at least).

2. I correlated the outcomes of post-WWII mid-terms during GOP presidencies with the GOP presidents’ shares of the 2-party vote in the preceding elections. I then applied that result to Trump’s share of the 2-party vote in 2016.

Both methods yield the same result for 2018: a loss of 4 House seats by the GOP (yes, four seats, not 4 percent of seats). The estimates are surrounded by a wide margin of error. Given that, the results support the view that the GOP will hold the House.

In the end, the outcome will depend on turnout. Are Democrats more charged up than Republicans? I don’t think so.

Comments & Correspondence

Comments close 30 days after the publication of a post. If a post is no longer open for comment, or if you prefer to communicate privately, you may e-mail me at the Germanic nickname for Friedrich followed by the last name of the great Austrian economist and Nobel laureate whose first name is Friedrich followed by the 3rd and 4th digits of his birth year followed by the usual typographic symbol followed by the domain and extension for Google’s e-mail service — all run together.

If you submit a comment or suggestion by e-mail, I may acknowledge it or use it on this blog. But I may paraphrase what you say or edit it for the sake of concision, clarity, coherence, or brevity. I will not use your name unless you specifically authorize me to do so. Even then, I will put quotation marks around your name unless I am certain of your identity.

On Liberty and Libertarianism

What is liberty? It is peaceful, willing coexistence and its concomitant: beneficially cooperative behavior.

John Stuart Mill opined that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." But who determines whether an act is harmful or harmless? Acts deemed harmless by an individual are not harmless if they subvert the societal bonds of trust and self-restraint upon which liberty itself depends.

Which is not to say that all social regimes are regimes of liberty. Liberty requires voice -- the freedom to dissent -- and exit -- the freedom to choose one's neighbors and associates. Voice and exit depend, in turn, on the rule of law under a minimal state.

Liberty, because it is a social phenomenon and not an innate condition of humanity, must be won and preserved by an unflinching defense of a polity that fosters liberty through its norms, and the swift and certain administration of justice within that polity. The governments in and of the United States have long since ceased to foster liberty, but most Americans are captives in their own land and have no choice but to strive for the restoration of liberty, or something closer to it.

Who can restore liberty? Certainly not the self-proclaimed libertarians who are fixated on Mill's empty harm principle and align with the left on social norms. Traditional (i.e., Burkean) conservatism fosters the preservation and adherence of beneficial norms (e.g., the last six of the Ten Commandments). Thus, by necessity, the only true libertarianism is found in traditional conservatism. I am a traditional conservative, which makes me a libertarian -- a true one.

Notes about Usage

“State” (with a capital “S”) refers to one of the United States, and “States” refers to two or more of them. “State” and “States,” thus used, are proper nouns because they refer to a unique entity or entities: one or more of the United States, the union of which, under the terms and conditions stated in the Constitution, is the raison d’être for the nation. I reserve the uncapitalized word “state” for a government, or hierarchy of them, which exerts a monopoly of force within its boundaries.

Marriage, in the Western tradition, predates the state and legitimates the union of one man and one woman. As such, it is an institution that is vital to civil society and therefore to the enjoyment of liberty. The recognition of a more-or-less permanent homosexual pairing as a kind of marriage is both ill-advised and illegitimate. Such an arrangement is therefore a “marriage” (in quotation marks) or, more accurately, a homosexual cohabitation contract (HCC).

The words “liberal”, “progressive”, and their variants are usually enclosed in quotation marks (sneer quotes) because they refer to persons and movements whose statist policies are, in fact, destructive of liberty and progress. I sometimes italicize the words, just to reduce visual clutter.

I have reverted to the British style of punctuating in-line quotations, which I followed 40 years ago when I published a weekly newspaper. The British style is to enclose within quotation marks only (a) the punctuation that appears in quoted text or (b) the title of a work (e.g., a blog post) that is usually placed within quotation marks.

I have reverted because of the confusion and unsightliness caused by the American style. It calls for the placement of periods and commas within quotation marks, even if the periods and commas don’t occur in the quoted material or title. Also, if there is a question mark at the end of quoted material, it replaces the comma or period that might otherwise be placed there.

If I had continued to follow American style, I would have ended a sentence in a recent post with this:

What a hodge-podge. There’s no comma between the first two entries, and the sentence ends with an inappropriate question mark. With two titles ending in question marks, there was no way for me to avoid a series in which a comma is lacking. I could have avoided the sentence-ending question mark by recasting the list, but the items are listed chronologically, which is how they should be read.

This not only eliminates the hodge-podge, but is also more logical and accurate. All items are separated by commas, commas aren’t displaced by question marks, and the declarative sentence ends with a period instead of a question mark.